Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (52 page)

We’re not getting any young blood. There’s no incentive. I don’t blame’em—to be tied up in one spot. There’s not as many hotels as there used to be. A great many of the two-hundred-, three-hundred-room houses are being torn down or they’re turned into office buildings. All that’s left are a few old stand-bys. There’s the big hotels, monstrosities. There is no homey feeling. You’re just a lonely traveler. If you go down to the bar, you don’t know who the hell you’re gonna run into. Your information clerk will probably be a nineteen-year-old college girl or boy. He doesn’t know a thing about hotels. He could care less. He wouldn’t even have an idea what you did for a living. These hotels are going to be missed.

Everybody’s in a rush: “Will you
please
hurry up with my bill? I’m in a hurry, I gotta catch a plane.” It’s a shame, because we could live in such a relaxed society . . .

I’m getting a little older. Can’t take it the way I could twenty years ago. Sometimes you just sit and ponder the day. You get a lot of laughs. (Laughs.) A fellow walked in one morning, he wanted to know if I had seen his wife. He took a picture out of his pocket and held it up. He said, “If you see her, tell her I was looking for her.” It was a picture of a nude woman. (Laughs.) You get a lot of laughs.

I have about nine years to go until sixty-five. My hope is that I’ll be in good condition, so I can do two or three days work at least in hotels. I know I’ll miss people. You always have the idea that you’re gonna better yourself. You think, Gee, I wonder if I could write a book or just exactly what I could do. I think I could have done a lot better than just being a clerk.

 

Piano playing is incidental to this place. It’s kind of background music for talking. Businessmen talking deals. Out-of-town visitors. Occasionally you get some people interested in hearing a certain type of song, and you entertain them. I never took any lessons. I play strictly by ear. I’m lucky I can read titles. (Laughs.)

Over the years I get to know people. They’ll hit the piano bar and we’ll talk back and forth. A second group will move in, strangers. They might be from small towns and they want to know what’s happening. You have close contact with people. This petrifies some piano players, so they play with bands. I never played with a band because I wasn’t qualified.

Late business is a thing of the past. People don’t stay down as late as they used to after work. The local people will have their drinks and go home. At one time they stayed down five, six hours. And they don’t come down like they used to. They have places out in the suburbs. And I think there’s a little bit of fear. I’ll see people check into the hotel, come down and sit around the piano bar. They’re really afraid to leave the hotel. It’s the strangest thing. Myself, I feel very safe. Evidently my work at the piano bar will be ended. Nothing is forever.

I hate to see it end. I’ll dread the day it comes, because I enjoy the action. I enjoy people. If I were suddenly to inherit four million dollars, I guarantee you I’d be playin’ piano, either here or at some other place. I can’t explain why. I would miss the flow of people in and out.

You’re kind of a listening board here. Sometimes they tell me things I wish they’d keep to themself. Personal, marriage problems, business. I get about twenty calls a night. A wife looking for a husband to bring something home. In a cute way she’s trying to find out if he’s here or some place else. If he doesn’t show up in an hour, I’ll be hearing. (Laughs.) I cover up constantly. They tell me things I’d just as soon not know. (Laughs.)

Some people think I run an answering service. We kid about it. They’ll get ahold of me and say, “Is so-and-so there? Do you know where he might be? If you get ahold of him, will you have him call this number?” A bartender hears the same stories. Saloons are full of lonely people trying to fill an empty hour or two. Waiting for a train . . .

There’s only a few things that separate you from the masses of workers. Through this business I have met some dignitaries. Where else could a piano player meet President Truman or Bob Hope or people like that? I’d never do it if I were a steam fitter or a plumber. There’s nothing wrong with their line of work. They probably make more than a piano player—except that I happen to be where people gather. It’s a good feeling. We’re fighting for a little bit of status, one way or the other.

Every minute of my life I deal with a drinking public. I’m not knocking it, they pay my salary. But you have to treat them a certain way after they have a few martinis. They change that rapidly. It doesn’t bother me unless they get rough. If he offends somebody around the bar, some wild vulgarity, I get up and get him out. Just by being nice. Most people you can talk to. It’s much more difficult with a woman who is drinking. She can be difficult. You can’t put your hands on her.

They’re never discourteous to me, directly. What gets me is the lack of courtesy to waitresses and bartenders. People could be a little kinder to’em. Not “Hey you, give us a drink over here!” Of course, we’re dealing with drinking people, so you have to put up with it. If someone happens to be rude to me, I don’t get mad. It rolls right off me. I just think, Poor souls. (Laughs.) You can’t show your troubles in this business. The customer is allowed to have troubles. That’s why we’re here.

Generally the customer is always right. But if he’s out of line . . . I have seen brutal racial vulgarity right in this hotel. People from a certain part of the country would talk abusive to black waiters. Aw, brutal. Back in 1952, ’53, Chet and I would step in. When that happened he either pays his check right away and gets out or he does an about-face: “Can’t you see I’m joking?” I’m a person who gets involved—sometimes too much. It’s best not to get involved in everything.

I get a straight salary. I was never what you’d call a tip man. I don’t know why. I worked at the piano bar and there was nothing but money around. Men on expense accounts. But I never made the tips others in this industry made. We had all those wonderful years, but I never saw any of it. Why, I don’t know. (Laughs.)

It might be sort of an independence I have. Sometimes people feel they would offend by tipping me. Here’s your city guy sitting at the piano and he’s dressed rather well. He seems to be getting along with the crowd. Maybe they feel he doesn’t need it. Most of the people in town, the really big spenders, the sporty class, I knew too well. They started tipping me, but the first thing you know I’m that person’s friend and that’s the end of the tip. I know piano players that keep aloof. They’ll walk out of the room on a break. They stay away from people on their own time. It’s good psychology.

I couldn’t do that. Naturally anyone would want to make a little extra money. But it wasn’t the target in my life. I was never a hustler. There’s ways of hustling people for tips. You can put a bowl on the piano, put a few dollars in it. There’s also a verbal way. A fella is hitting you for a few tunes. He keeps it up. There’s ways of kidding him: “God, that’s a five-dollar number, that one.” But it just doesn’t run in me. If they want to give it to me, fine. If they don’t, all right. They’re gonna get the same action.

I play along whether it’s noisy or quiet. It doesn’t bother me if people talk or are loud. It’s part of the game. I never had a strong ego. I sometimes wish I did. I can play all the melodies, but I’m not really a good piano player. I wish I were. I never touch a piano until I walk in here. I don’t have a piano at home. My father was a talented musician. In our home there was always a piano. Everybody played, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sister, myself.

I consider myself a whisky salesman. The amount of money spent in this room pays me. I encourage people in a nice way to have a good time. I usually take a break only when business dies down. But you might as well be there while you have visitors. That way it helps the bartender. I never thought of myself as an artist. I know my limitations. It’s a business. It’s all show biz.

I shudder to think of retirement. The most frightening thing to me will be the day I say, “I’m going down to St. Petersburg and buy a little home.” I know everything in life ends. It’s not growing old that worries me, but what would I do? When it gets quiet here, your mind strays and you start thinking of many things. I find myself talking about the future but I’m always thinking about the past.

 

Some of these starters, they won’t do nothin’. I told ’em, “One good piece of ass and one day’s work would kill you guys.” They never done hard work. They were always on the cars. They were squawking that they work hard opening doors for people. That was a pleasure to me, ’cause you get to know people. You get to know their habits.

Certain persons get on at the same time and I know just where they’re goin’. This one woman, I’d catch her every time, at ten or ten thirty. She wouldn’t tell me where she was goin’. She’d always get off at the fourteenth floor. See, the main washroom’s on the fourteenth floor. (Laughs.)

I’m security too. Anybody takes anything out, they gotta get a pass. Somebody look suspicious, you ask ‘em where they’re going—in a polite way. You just watch the car, see where they’re going, and don’t say no more. Sometimes by lookin’ at a person you can tell what character he is. Any time they go to the board I always say, “Can I help you?” I won’t say any more. When they see you’re watchin’ ’em, they’ll go right down again. That’s all.

A lot of people come in here, they go to that board, they won’t even ask you, ‘cause they’re afraid. Some of these buildings, the guy says, “There’s the directory.” I try to help. It don’t hurt. You mention a room number, I would give you that room number. ’Cause every time they change that directory I try to study that board. It makes me look like a genius when somebody asks me something.

A person goes on a vacation or they’re out on a business trip, I tell ‘em, “You were gone.” They’ll say thanks that you were thinkin’ about ‘em. Remembering people’s names, that means a lot. They let you know if they want to be called mister or missis. I respect these guys with their high positions. If they want you to call ’em by their first name, they’ll tell you.

I found out executives are the really good ones. They’ll kid around. Even the ordinary people, they’ll kid around with you. Someday, if I don’t talk to ‘em, they’ll say, “What’s the matter, you mad or somethin’?” If I don’t smile, people will want to know if I’m sick or what happened. You gotta always have somethin’ goin’. I always tell ‘em in the morning, “Have fun.” Next time I see ’em, “Hurry back.” When it’s bad out, I always say, “Did you order this weather?” They like this kidding around. They say it cheers up their day. I’m not hard to get along with nobody.

I got a picture with Dirksen.
⁴²
We open the door when he come in and just as he shook my hand, this photographer—I got it home, two of ‘em, colored pictures. He come right up and shook my hand. Daley came in: “Hello, there.” He thanked me for takin’ him up. You know who else I met here? Sonny and Cher. They were dressed like hippies. I didn’t know who they were, so somebody told me. It could happen any time. When I see a celebrity, I go home and tell my wife about it. She’ll tell all her friends and relatives. She’ll say who I saw. I don’t want to retire. I’d be lost if I had to stay home and don’t see the public all day long.

 

POSTSCRIPT:
“Today we have no friends since TV came out. One time, before TV, friends come to your house. You say, ‘Come over,’ and as soon as they come over, they stick their nose in that TV. Forget about it! I’ll tell you, I bought a Hammond organ. I’m takin’ organ lessons. Soon’s I get home, before I have my dinner—two cans of beer. Then I’ll eat. Then I’ll practice the organ. TV? Forget it.”

He suffered a nervous breakdown and was in the hospital for three months. He’s been out for a year. “I’m thirty years old and I sometimes feel fifty.”
(
Laughs.
)

 

Right now I’m doing work that I detest. I’m a janitor. It’s a dirty job. You work hard. When I’m at work I wear a uniform, gray khaki pants and a gray shirt. It’s baggy pants. It’s what you see a lot of janitors wearing. This is the kind of work I used to think niggers would do or hillbillies or DPs. You don’t associate with people like that. Now I’m one of them.

“You’re a bum”—this is the picture I have of myself. I’m a flop because of what I’ve come to. There’s five of us at work here. It’s a housing project. Three can barely speak a word of English. They’re DPs. They work very hard and don’t complain. They’re perfectly content, but I’m not. It’s a dead end. Tonight I’m gonna meet a couple of old friends at a bar. I haven’t seen them for a long time. I feel inferior. I’ll bullshit ’em. I’ll say I’m a lawyer or something.